COMMENTS:

This little moment always gives me a feeling of vertigo. We've seen a shot of a desk before--a static shot--at the beginning of the film when Travis applies for a job. But this time the camera is moving. Counter clockwise camera twist, lateral track, and a clockwise sweeping hand. Travis Bickle is asking Betsy out on a date.

The camera in TAXI DRIVER has an almost textbook insistence on commenting on action. It takes a childish delight in whooshing into characters faces when the world whooshes away from them. We've seen high angles turn into empowering low angles. This moment goes much further. It is a yearning towards the poetic. The camera movement, for this moment, is on Travis? side--while before, though very much aligned with him, it was always communicating to us something about him. This moment is a key moment in understanding the style of the film, but it does not, itself, communicate. Or rather, it emphasizes the objects filmed. In the way the image doubles what Travis is saying, one may think of Robert Bresson or Terrence Malick. But, unlike the work of those filmmakers, this shot in TAXI DRIVER feels superfluous. Not mysterious. But lovely. In a flagrantly kinetic movie, this moment, paradoxically, feels still. Reflective.

[ By Adam Rosadiuk • November 11, 2004 ]